The University at Buffalo Department of Library and Information Studies – Official Student Blog

Journey to the Center of the Lockwood Basement

by Anna Gossin

It was a not so dark and stormy Saturday morning when I wandered back into Lockwood Library. I had an assignment to complete for LIS505, and needed a book. Yes, I suppose that’s a given on certain days. This book was about library science. Again, that seems obvious when you think about it. I needed a book on intellectual freedom and I needed it then. I don’t need it as much now, but at the time, my entire GPA depended on it. This meant journeying into a previously undiscovered territory: the infamous Lockwood Basement.

Whoever decided that library science books deserved the letter Z obviously has never been to Lockwood Library. Z gets the distinction of being the last letter of the alphabet and the last section of the library. This means that all of our books are in the basement, next to the juvenile section and some random textbooks. If someone desperately needs a library bound copy of the latest Harry Potter, they now know where to look. No one should ever go into the basement alone, and certainly not on a Saturday morning.

I’ll get right to the point: That basement is creepy. Things squeak even when the floor is deserted. The cages of old books just scream out “Enter At Your Own Risk” even without a sign. I know these are stacks, the stenciled sign doesn’t need to tell me that. What’s going to happen when I want some obscure dissertation from 1987? Am I going to get sucked into the pages, never to be seen again? Here’s how to keep this from happening. Never go to the basement alone on a weekend. Simple, right? I should hope so. After all, it was our stellar common sense skills that got us into library school in the first place, right? Maybe. Get back to me on that one, but not from inside the cages.